The Cursewright's Vow

Chapter 8: Lord Marhollow's Pursuit, Part 1

 Long past sunset, while Ammas, Casimir, and Lena kept an anxious vigil over the sleeping Carala, Denisius Gallis and his manservant Vos found themselves in a drinking hall so splendidly riotous that the young Lord Marhollow thought it better than a carnival. Amid wonders and delights he had never seen anywhere in Talinara -- and certainly not in Marhollow -- Erstan Gallis the Lord Marhollow's youngest son nearly found himself as mazed as a plump young buck staring into the eyes of a ravenous wolf. And that comparison, perhaps, was not so far-fetched.

Munazyr really was not like most cities in the Anointed Realms. The Doge and his Argent Council would affect no surprise at this observation, since by their lights Munazyr wasn't part of those Realms. Despite such affectations, it had helped give birth to those manifold kingdoms, and had far more in common with them than it did the vast domains which bowed to the Sultan of Q'Sivaris. His Eternal Majesty the Sultan had, of course, left his mark on Munazyr and the Straits of Twilight over the intermittent decades when it had belonged to him, but these marks never went as deep as those of the Empire for which Munazyr had once served as a capital. 

One thing that set Munazyr so proudly apart from its former sister cities was that it rarely slept. It comprised many worlds amid its wards, from the quiet meditations of the Othillic Deacons to the boisterous feats of challenge among the Hethmar Blades; from the heartrending concertos of the Argent Council's Symphony Orchestra to the wrestling matches and chariot races in Kyrantine's Odeon, which stood just beyond the Peddlers' Gate. Sweetly blushing merchant princesses were courted by bold young men just above or shy young men just below their station well past dusk, while the flesh-for-coin seediness of places like the Prideful Lioness conducted their trade all day and and all night long. Munazyr dozed but briefly in the gentle hour before sunrise of Graceday and Weektide. Some wards, like the Old Godsway, where stood many establishments such as the Lioness and even less reputable places (not to mention an often insomniac cursewright-in-exile who was accustomed to desperate clients coming to him under cover of night), only saw their true spirit come to life after the sun sank below the horizon.

Munazyr was hardly the only city where this was true, of course. The operas of Vilais played their music and beguiled their audiences until well into the small hours. The chiming bells and murmured psalms in Q'Sivaris which paid tribute to His Eternal Majesty could be heard at every hour of the day, save only at the moment of sunset when the Sultan's wishes commanded complete silence. Even Gallowsport slept, if restlessly, during the darkest hours of the night when its numerous criminal guilds ceased their endless plotting and the Grand Curia which forever sought to tame them closed its doors until dawn.

But perhaps in Munazyr alone could one leave his apartments or manse or hovel at any hour of the day or night, venture to any ward of the city, and find at least a few open businesses; at least a few welcoming taverns; at least one little theatre troupe performing anything from a farce to a solemn morality play. A friendly stranger might be found smiling under a halo of lantern light, ready to play a game of Whistling Jack or share a pitcher of ale over tales and legends and gossip. Minstrels might roam nearby, idly playing  the sober Munaz anthem or a bawdy tavern song about the Emperor's rumored younger proclivities. And with eternal wakefulness came eternal visitors, from every corner of the world, beyond both the Anointed Realms and the Sultan's dominions. There was a reason Lady Terazla herself had dubbed the city at the Straits of Twilight the gods' crossroads. And Denisius Gallis at this moment found himself fascinated with one of the most exotic of those visitors.

She called herself Demelza, and claimed she was a chieftainess in exile from Summervale. Denisius might hail from a quiet Malachite backwater, but he was not such a naif that he believed this to be anything but sheerest puffery. Yet the -- woman? he wasn't sure what to call her -- proclaimed it with such sly conviction that it was hard to disbelieve completely.

Upon a low stage she danced and cavorted and prowled, dressed in barely enough for modesty yet in some ways far more concealed than the nakedest maid. Tribal totems and charms adorned her wrists and ankles and waist, merry jingling flecks of gold and silver that dazzlingly threw back the warm illumination of the Four Winds's whale oil lanterns. Beyond the charms she wore only a simple black loincloth of fabulous silk threaded with gleaming red threads. Frequently her exertions caused it to flick upward, revealing shadowy secrets Denisius blushed furiously to glimpse, reminding him helplessly of what he had seen of Carala in the Judges' Conservatory, both before and after the wolf inside her emerged.

But any Namarri disdained heavier clothing as it tended to burden them with something near to heat exhaustion, even in so temperate a clime as autumnal Munazyr (and certainly in the close warmth of a festhall such as the Four Winds). Demelza was no different. The black and orange patterns of her tigerish stripes, the enchantingly soft white fur of her belly and brazenly naked breasts, the flicking black tufts of her ears, twitching through a long orange-and-black mane, might have been the envy of the wealthiest courtier wearing a king's ransom on her body to the Chalcedony Palace's throne room or the most sumptuous harem in the Sultan's court. And the intricately carved jeweled device -- it was not precisely a ring or bangle -- that gripped the base of her swaying striped tail was something no human courtier could wear. A drummer from Summervale, human with dusky skin and elaborate scarification adorning his cheeks and dressed in the fashion of an advocate at the Doge's Hall of Judgments, beat a lively rhythm on a drum in a sunken area beside the tiger-dancer's stage, filling this corner of the Four Winds with the wild music of his ancestral home, far from the Straits of Twilight.

Denisius watched her positively transfixed. The . . . woman, yes, there was no question anymore in his mind that she was definitely that . . . was beautiful, at least in shape, though he kept half-expecting her to step aside and peel away a clinging suit of tiger fur to reveal a Summervale lass beneath. But her rippling stripes and pawed hands and feet and the slyly smiling muzzle of her face were no illusion. The Namarri were almost legendary in the confines of the Anointed Realms, despite the embassy that had achieved one of the few successful insults against Somilius Deyn III. 

Denisius hadn't been much older than Carala when that had occurred, and he had certainly not been at the Chalcedony Palace, but he remembered his parents' surprise upon receiving the news, and his brother Lorith's sneering disbelief. "If those cat things were real, and one of them had the nerve to spit on the Emperor, he would have skinned it alive and stuck it in the Imperial Museum stuffed and mounted."

Watching Demelza dance; and sway her tail with a sly knowledge at the laughing and applauding crowd gathered around her stage; flashing her fangs in a delighted smiling snarl as they showered her with copper, silver, and even gold; and perhaps most of all seeing her eyes, jade-gold lanterns both human and animal, but wholly neither, Denisius thought Lorith had failed to grasp the power of these beings entirely. Even though he was not near the stage, keeping to the edges of every situation as Vos had advised they do since that near-disastrous first night in Gallowsport, Denisius found himself hesitantly fingering his purse, wondering if he could hit the stage with a handful of silver from this distance.

When the Namarri woman finished her dance and sketched an elegant curtsey, using her tail instead of a nonexistent skirt, Denisius sank back into the cozy wing chair, pulling a long sip of beer from his tankard. The Four Winds was, according to Vos, the best bar in Munazyr. ("Though to be honest, milord, it has far more competition than the Last Lantern in Marhollow.") Certainly this was the coldest and most refreshing beer Denisius had ever tasted. Although, he reflected, that might just be a lingering effect of Demelza's performance. He couldn't fairly judge her dance any more than he could the Four Winds's most expensive brew. It had been the eyes, and the animal face somehow capable of human expressions.

The face, in other words, of a werewolf.